Parenting observed at age 3 was linked to how the brain responded to monetary rewards across the following 15 years, according to a Jul. 22 study published in Communications Psychology. The research highlights a potential pathway through which early family experiences relate to adolescent development.
The study found that early parenting is associated with the development of reward responsiveness from late childhood through adolescence. Reward responsiveness, which governs how individuals anticipate and respond to positive stimuli, is considered fundamental for mental and physical health. Altered functioning in these systems has been connected with conditions such as depression and substance use.
Researchers examined data from 465 young people enrolled in the Stony Brook Temperament Study, an ongoing prospective community cohort study. Parenting analyses included 457 participants, while stress analyses included 464. Assessments were conducted every three years from age 3 through age 18, measuring neural responses using electroencephalography (EEG) during monetary reward tasks at ages approximately 9, 12, 15, and 18.
The analysis focused on maternal parenting behavior because more than ninety-five percent of parents completing teaching tasks were mothers. Parameters assessed included support, confidence, instruction quality, intrusiveness, and hostility during parent-child interactive teaching tasks. Stress exposure was also evaluated using the Preschool Age Psychiatric Assessment (PAPA), capturing cumulative stressful life events from birth to age three.
Findings indicated that only early positive parenting behavior was positively associated with higher modeled neural response to winning feedback at initial EEG assessment and with a steeper rise in this response from late childhood into mid-adolescence before declining by late adolescence. Negative parenting did not show significant association at initial assessment but was linked with a weaker increase over time in neural responses related to winning feedback. Early stress exposure did not show statistically significant associations.
The authors suggest that negative and positive parental styles may be part of a broader range of behaviors influencing reward responsiveness over time rather than entirely separate dimensions. They note limitations including reliance on observed maternal behaviors during specific tasks and limited diversity within the sample population. The findings indicate that “parenting behaviors observed at a single assessment point in early childhood were associated with the developmental trajectory of reward responsiveness through late adolescence.” However, they caution that their observational design cannot establish causality between changes in parenting behavior and alterations in adolescent reward responsiveness.
